I am about to buy my first dedicated e-reader and I would welcome your advice / opinions.

Up until now I have read my e-books on an iPhone 7 (surprisingly comfortable) and an iPad (too heavy to hold for long lying in bed).

I attach great importance to the quality of the screen and to the filtering of the blue light, since I read mostly in the evening. This has narrowed my choice to the Kobo Aura H20 2nd edition that has just been released and the Tolino Vision 4 HD. From what I can read, they are broadly similar in quality and price, apart from their screen size.

I read in another thread that the Tolino's software was not as good as that of the Kobo.

The determining factor for me is which of the two devices would be most appropriate for reading books borrowed from public libraries (in Belgium). I have read that the Kobo deforms ePub books that do not come from Kobo, increasing or decreasing the space at the top and foot of the screen. I could not find any specific information about the Tolino on this point. Can anyone enlighten me on that?

I have also read that it is possible to convert a standard ePub format to a Kobo format using Calibre, but I would prefer if possible not to have to use Calibre every time I borrow a book.

The determining factor for me is which of the two devices would be most appropriate for reading books borrowed from public libraries (in Belgium). I have read that the Kobo deforms ePub books that do not come from Kobo, increasing or decreasing the space at the top and foot of the screen.

I have no idea where you get that from. The Kobo ereaders display epubs as they are coded. There are a couple of bugs, but, in general, if you see weird things, it's because the person who created the book did it that way.
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I have also read that it is possible to convert a standard ePub format to a Kobo format using Calibre, but I would prefer if possible not to have to use Calibre every time I borrow a book.
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Strictly, you can't use calibre with borrowed epub. They have DRM and the creator of the DRM stripping tools discourages their use on library books. That means you would need to use ADE to get the book onto the device. The alternative

Strictly, you can't use calibre with borrowed epub. They have DRM and the creator of the DRM stripping tools discourages their use on library books. That means you would need to use ADE to get the book onto the device. The alternative

Being an owner of the older H2O and a Tolino 3, I do feel the Kobo firmware gives more fine tuning options for font/spacing. That said, when reading epubs the Kobo only shows page number against total pages, whereas the Tolino will also tell you pages left in the chapter (a small, but nice feature).

Kobos do not mess up Epubs in my experience, but add extra header/footer space on Kepubs. Perhaps that is what you were thinking of?

I'm relieved to hear that the Kobo does not mess up ePub books. That was my main concern, since I will use it mostly to read books borrowed from libraries. The question was raised in an otherwise very positive review in this excellent French-language blog dedicated to e-readers: http://aldus2006.typepad.fr/mon_weblog/kobo/

The reference to Calibre was just a minor point and need not bother you any further if the Kobo machine handles ePub books well.

At this point in time I think I will buy the Kobo rather than the Tolino. On the German Amazon site the user reviews of the Tolino are rather mixed - 6 out of 23 users are dissatisfied, whereas on the website of FNAC, the distributor of the Kobo in France, the user reviews are very positive - out of 455 users only 15 give it 1 or 2 stars.

One other point: dictionaries. I notice that the Kobo manual warns that the dictionaries may not function with books borrowed from libraries. Have any of you any experience in this regards? Perhaps I should start a new thread in a different section?

I'm relieved to hear that the Kobo does not mess up ePub books. That was my main concern, since I will use it mostly to read books borrowed from libraries. The question was raised in an otherwise very positive review in this excellent French-language blog dedicated to e-readers: http://aldus2006.typepad.fr/mon_weblog/kobo/

A quick read of the Google translated version, the paragraph that mentions space at the bottom of the screen is referring to widows and orphans. This is a CSS setting that specifies what to do if a paragraph goes over a page. It set the number of lines in the paragraph that can be left at the bottom of the page (widows) and the number that must be on the next page (orphans). This means the bottom of the screen isn't always filled. The CSS specs say the default is 2, and Kobo uses this for epubs. Unfortunately, as the widows and orphans are rarely specified in epubs, that means you get the changing space at the end of the page.

Kepubs do not support widows and orphans in CSS. They are ignored and the renderer effectively uses 1.

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One other point: dictionaries. I notice that the Kobo manual warns that the dictionaries may not function with books borrowed from libraries. Have any of you any experience in this regards? Perhaps I should start a new thread in a different section?

The dictionaries work in epubs and kepubs no matter what the source. They don't work in PDF or anything that is actually an image. The "may not" is probably Kobo being cautious as I'm sure there PDFs in the available for borrowing.

Thank you very much David for your reassurance about the dictionaries and the way the Kobo Aura handles ePub books! In the light of your explanations I feel confident now to buy the H20 Second Edition.

The dictionaries are very important for me because I will be reading books in different languages and need to be able to translate easily words I don't understand.

I will pass on to the author of the French blog your explanation about the orphans and widows. I'm sure he too will appreciate your input.

In conclusion, may I thank you and the other contributors for your rapid, authoritative and very helpful comments! I realise that you did this during your weekend, when you could have been relaxing or pursuing your own interests, and I appreciate your help all the more. Thank you!

I will pass on to the author of the French blog your explanation about the orphans and widows. I'm sure he too will appreciate your input.

One quick fix to the widows/orphans issue is in GeoffR's patches for the Kobo firmware. One patch which was originally intended to correct a bug in Adobe's code which generated odd page breaks with long paragraphs -- that bug has fixed for a while now -- is still useful since it effectively forces widows and orphans to 1.